Upcycled Wood Shim Dresser

Learn how to update your old dresser with a few packs of wood shims and some stain from the home improvement store! This DIY dresser makeover can be done in a day and will give your bedroom a West Elm feel for a fraction of the cost.

At the beginning of the year when the Christmas decor comes down, I’m always itching to get some new furniture or accessories to update my space. Last year, I’d been drooling over some of the gorgeous pieces in the West Elm catalog with different colors of stained wood mixed together. I definitely can’t afford the thousand dollar price tag, so I decided to update my own dresser. For less than $40, I created this upcycled wood shim dresser:

I actually did the first dresser makeover almost 2 years ago, when I painted it, added decorative metal sheeting and new hardware. This is what it looked like:

After two years, I was ready for a change. I wanted something with more warmth, texture and modern lines. I still liked the paint colors, so I decided to update the drawer fronts. I don’t have a ton of tools, so I didn’t want to worry about cutting all of that wood. Wood shims were the perfect solution!

I got a pack of 40 wood shims at my local home improvement store, for less than $5. I decided to buy two packs for this project, because some of the shims aren’t in the best condition and I wanted to make sure I had enough! I also picked up small cans of Minwax wood stain in some of their new colors. These stains are gorgeous!

The colors I used are Classic Grey, Honey, Weathered Oak, and Espresso. The Weathered Oak ended up being my favorite because of the color variation and natural look it gave me. I started by sorting through the wood shims and giving them a light sanding to smooth out the rough spots. Then, I laid out all of the dresser drawers on my work surface and started creating a pattern on each drawer front. (This was done at night so please excuse the pictures!)

I marked the shims with a pencil so I would know where I needed to cut each one. An easy way to do it is to cut about 12 of the shims in half, and then you can add 2 of those halves to one full-length shim to create one row of your pattern. On alternating rows, I slightly overlapped 2 full-length shims. Just keep playing with it until you like the look, and make sure all of the shims are laying as flat as possible.

When you are ready to stain, start with one color at a time, and take the pieces you want to stain in that color off of each drawer. When you are staining the wood shims, brush the stain on with a natural bristle brush (the cheap ones work great for this!) and then let the color sit on there for 2-5 minutes. The longer you leave it, the more the stain will penetrate. Wipe off all excess stain and then place those pieces back into your pattern on the drawer front. Continue doing this for each stain color until every drawer is complete!

I let them dry overnight, and this is what they looked like in the morning. All ready to be glued on!

Here is the hardest part. I’m not gonna lie…. getting them adhered to the drawers was kind of tricky at times, but after my first drawer it got easier 🙂 I used this Power Grab adhesive to stick the wood shims to the dresser drawers.

This stuff is pretty powerful once adhered! But it is repositionable for 15-20 minutes, so you have to make sure they are in place and weighted down if necessary for at least that amount of time. I used heavy cans from my pantry to keep some of the shims in place.

I put a nice sized glob of the construction adhesive in a few spots on the back of each shim. Make sure you have enough at each end, and some in the middle. You have to get a feel for it because you don’t want it squishing out the ends either!

I glued them on, one shim at a time so I could keep the pattern in tact. Here is one of the drawers when I was done gluing:

One secret… I did have to use some hot glue on a few of the pieces that weren’t staying flat. It worked well to keep them in place until the adhesive was dry. When all the drawers were done, I let them dry for about an hour just to make sure everything was secure, and then I put them back in the dresser to see the final result.

The bottom of the dresser still had the old-school curvy detailing that I didn’t love, so I took a piece of thin plywood, stained it, cut it to fit the width of the dresser and attached it to the bottom.

That’s it! It sounds more complicated than it actually was, and I finished this entire project in less than 24 hours. It is like I have a brand new piece of furniture in my room and I love it!! We’d love it if you’d pin this project for later: